IoT for Home Automation: Research Proposal

This research proposal focuses on IoT for home automation, its significance, challenges, and methodology. The aim is to add more efficiency and security in home automation as compared with other existing technologies. The proposal discusses the integration of WSN networks with IoT to develop a better design without compromising the balance between securities. The project will be designed in such a way that it would be easier for effective middleware management.

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Internet of Things for home automation
Research Proposal

IoT for home automation 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Aim of the study.........................................................................................................................2
Objectives of the study...............................................................................................................2
Significance of the study............................................................................................................3
Methodology..............................................................................................................................3
Timelines....................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The Internet of things (IoT) is the most promising technology of this decade. It was
introduced for the first time in 1998 by Kevin Ashton and since then it has brought revolution
in the field of information and communication technology. It basically means to connect all
the devices with the internet. All of the smart devices like mobile phones, home appliances,
transportation system, watches, etc. will be connected with the internet and will act as one
system. The main goal of IoT is to reduce the human interaction with daily work (Akyildiz,
Rudin, Stiller, 2018). It creates a network of machines and physical objects that interact with
each other and cooperate to enhance human life. IoT is just not a single device but a whole
system of devices. This can be used to monitor our results and data, homes, properties,
business, etc. while we are somewhere else (Luigi, Lera and Morabito, 2010).
Many global companies like google, amazon, etc. have already entered in this market. Many
start-up companies have also joined in this growing market as IoT is not only limited to home
automation but it can also provide great business opportunities. It can also be used in business
automation. But the concept of IoT is not well accepted because of some reasons like high
price, target or limited customer and establishment of infrastructure for this technology
(Balta-Ozkan, et al., 2013; Mordor intelligence, 2018).
There are many applications of IoT, and there is still lot of research required in this field. One
application is in health care industries which can use the resources of IoT very well. Another
application is of smart city. A city which makes better use of resources, improved service
quality, reduced cost of public administrations, can be referred as smart city (Zanella, et al.,
2014). This can be achieved with the help of IoT. But the most important role of IoT is in the
home automation or smart home, which is the main part of this proposal. The home enabled
with IoT which is more intelligent, can be controlled with remote and has interconnected
devices can be referred as smart home. In this research, an effort is made to study home
automation in terms of security and how it can be improved and made more efficient (Yang,
Lee and Lee, 2018; Park, et al., 2017).
IoT management is highly essential because of the increasing number of devices getting
connected to the systems. The device management is essential because there is increase in the
number of devices connected on the network is very large (Internet of things, 2018). With the
help of edge computing, IoT systems will be able to provide higher speeds and better

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accessibility to the connected devices especially the ones that are attached nearly with the
IOT source. Keeping the sources closer to the devices in the home will also increase the
bandwidth of data transfer as well as there will be consolidation of computing into huge data
centres.
This research aims to help in fighting against the challenges that are present in the edge
competing and is related to the home appliances. I want to present the challenges that are
faced by the users that are connected to these large systems. I would like to present this paper
in the IEEE journal and I would like to present it in the IEEE EDGE conference in 2023 on
IOT and security challenges in various parts of the world.
Aim of the study
Home automation is the primary sector where IoT can be used. There is still lot of research
required to increase the performance of this system. The main aim of this study is to add
more efficiency and security in home automation as compared with other existing
technologies. This project deals with the integration of WSN networks with IoT to develop a
better design without compromising the balance between securities. The project will be
designed in such a way that it would be easier for effective middleware management.
Objectives of the study
 To design a low cost system that can monitor and manage the home appliances with
the help of IoT.
 To measure the performance of network QoS for integrated WSN with IoT using the
proposed design.
 To isolate the WSN sensors from the internet.
 To design a gateway for direct exchange of data between sensors and server (Xhafa,
2018).
 To use open source software for optimised middleware management.
Key challenges
 Security issues can be problematic as the data needs to be securely transmitted to the
gateway. Managing of security issues in the home environment is not for the common
people. In the last decade even the bigger firms have been attacked by the hackers and

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this seems to be increasing in the coming years (SEC, 2018). Understanding of IOT’s
every layer’s security is not an easy for non-IT professionals.
 Non-unified cloud services are a problem for this infrastructure as there are homes
that are in the far off regions hence restricting effective use of IOT.
 The standards of network protocols, communication protocols and data aggregation
from the sensors are advancing at much faster rate and the technical skills required for
handling such a network is not so common in home environment (Prasanna, 2018).
There is a constant increase in the scope, scale and frequency of data available for
evaluation.
Significance of the study
There are many definitions of IoT, but they all have common things like communication of
information through the internet. It is used to make everything around us automatic. A fully
functional automated home will be available soon with the help of this technology. It started
with the monitoring of various parts of home and then the next step was to control them with
remote. Home automation is very much required not only in terms of security, but it will also
help in making energy efficient home and reduction in cost (Yang, Lee and Zo, 2017). The
user will be able to see the live power consumption of each and every appliance in the house
and can control it from one single place. Now a user can control things in his home with the
help of IoT. For example, one can get notified via different ways in case of emergency like
fire, light intensity changing according to our need, changing the room temperature before
arriving at home, monitoring through surveillance camera or moving robot while we are away
from home (Chan, et al., 2008; Ghayvat, et al., 2015). All this things can be achieved with the
help of IoT. Hence, this study is significant in terms of providing literature in the field of
home automation.
Methodology
The first step in the methodology is to design the system architecture for the given problem.
How the communication process of various appliances will take place. Both mobile
application and web application can be used for the process. The procedure to send and
receive status needs to be designed. For such systems Xbee and 6LoWPAN modules can be
used.

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The next step in this process is to control the devices through internet. The interconnection
between the internet and WSN can be done through IoT Gateway. Wireless can be used for
this purpose. Security will also be a major concern while using open network. Hence,
Security protocol will also be selected. Different models which are used to communicate with
the controller through web or mobile applications like Weaved, AWS mobile Hub or Pusher.
Real time interaction will also be used for accurate results (Pulli, et al., 2012).
After selecting all the communicating devices and controllers, the next step will be to connect
the sensors, devices, motors and cameras to the controller. All the data send by the sensors
will be received by the controller. This data will be send over to the internet. The user can
access this data on web or mobile applications. At the same time, the user will be able to
change the data by sending a command on the same application. Server client protocol or
direct internet connection can be used for communication. A working model of all this
procedure will be designed.

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Timelines
This process will require a time of 3-4 years as shown in the following chart.
Activity name
Start
Day Last Day
Duratio
n
(Month)
Background
Reading
01-01-
2019
01-02-
2020 11
Literature
Review
01-03-
2020
01-11-
2020 9
Methodology
01-11-
2020
01-03-
2021 4
Data
collection
01-04-
2021
01-12-
2021 9
Results
01-12-
2021
01-02-
2022 3
Discussions
01-02-
2022
01-06-
2022 5
Conclusion
01-06-
2022
01-08-
2022 3
Documentatio
n
01-08-
2022
01-12-
2022 2
Background Reading
Literature Review
Methodology
Data collection
Results
Discussions
Conclusion
Documentation
1/1/2019
3/1/2020
11/1/2020
4/1/2021
12/1/2021
2/1/2022
6/1/2022
8/1/2022
11
9
4
9
3
5
3
2
Gantt chart
Start Day
Duration (Month)

IoT for home automation 7
References
Balta-Ozkan, N., Davidson, R., Bicket, M. and Whitmarsh, L. (2013) Social barriers to the
adoption of smart homes. Energy Policy, 63, pp. 363-374.
Chan, M., Estève, D., Escriba, C. and Campo, E. (2008) A review of smart homes—present
state and future challenges. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 91(1), pp. 55-
81.
Ghayvat, H., Mukhopadhyay, S., Gui,X. and Suryadevara, N. (2015) WSN- and IOT-based
smart homes and their extension to smart buildings. Sensors, 15(5), pp. 10350-10379.
Luigi, A., Lera, A. and Morabito, G. (2010) The internet of things: A survey. Computer
Networks, 54(15), pp. 2787-2805.
Mordor intelligence, (2018) Smart Homes Market. [online] Available from:
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-smart-homes-market-industry?
gclid=CIjd6MXjydYCFYYDKgod4ZQFaw [Accessed 06/07/2018]
Park, E., Cho, Y., Han, J. and Kwon, S.J. (2017) Comprehensive approaches to user
acceptance of Internet of Things in a smart home environment. IEEE Internet of Things
Journal, 4(6), pp.2342-2350.
Pulli, K., Baksheev, A., Kornyakov, K. and Eruhimov, V. (2012) Real-time computer vision
with opencv. Commun. ACM, 55(6), pp. 61-69.
Yang, H., Lee, H. and Zo, H. (2017) User acceptance of smart home services: an extension of
the theory of planned behaviour. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 117(1), pp. 68-89.
Yang, H., Lee, W. and Lee, H. (2018) IoT Smart Home Adoption: The Importance of Proper
Level Automation. Journal of Sensors, 2018, pp 1-11.
Zanella, A., Bui, N., Castellani, A., Vangelista, L. and Zorzi, M. (2014) Internet of things for
smart cities. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 1(1), pp. 22-32.
Internet of things, (2018) IEEE Internet of Things Journal. Retrieved from: http://ieee-
iotj.org/. [Accessed on 18 July 2018].

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Xhafa, F. (2018) Internet of Things. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/internet-of-things. [Accessed on 18 July 2018].
Prasanna, V. (2018) Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-parallel-and-distributed-computing. [Accessed
on 18 July 2018].
Akyildiz, I.F., Rudin, H., Stiller B., (2018) Computer Networks. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-networks. [Accessed on 18 July 2018].
SEC, (2018) The Third ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge ComputingBellevue, WA, October
25-27, 2018. [Online]. Available at: http://acm-ieee-sec.org/2018/. [Accessed on 18 July
2018].